This coming Wednesday Accor is changing the name of its frequent guest program from A|Club to Le Club Accorhotels. Not sure if it sounds a bit too French, but I am normally happy with my stays at Starwood’s Le Meridien and Le Royal Meridien hotels.

I hope that they have better integrated the new Le Club Accorhotels to their reservation system. Currently you need to plug in your A|Club number each and every time you make a reservation. Also, the web address for the A|Club has been separate from the Accor’s site for actual bookings. I guess that we need to wait couple of more days to find out. The new site should be up and running this coming Wednesday.

The main selling point of this hotel is the close proximity to the capital of Fiji, but yet far enough away from the city to feel like a resort. I was on my way from Nadi to Suva and spent a night at the InterContinental Fiji resort, that was stunning, before continuing my way to Suva. As it was starting to be late I decided to spend a night here before continuing to the city, and to the Holiday Inn in the morning.

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The drive from Natadola Bay and Nadi is long. This will take about three hours if you drive fast. I would not suggest driving during the night-time as there are rather large potholes at times. It is impossible to see them in the dark.

There are numerous villages on the way and you need to slow down considerably when you are driving through them. They have at least two speed bumps in every village. Just before you enter one and when you leave.

Check in

The check in was fast. I had made my reservation earlier in the day while logged in to my Accor A Club Platinum account. Not sure about this A Club because apparently there are no benefits for staying at Novotel hotels besides getting some extra points. Anyway, I was allocated a room facing the bay and on a wing that appeared to been renovated fairly recently.

Room

The room itself was nice but rather small. All was very functional, however. There was a lovely view of the bay from the balcony.

Bathroom, again, was quite small but functional.

Restaurant / Bar

Didn’t have a breakfast at this property so cannot comment about it. I did, however, have a soup, dessert, and couple of beers in the evening when I arrived. There was couple of musicians playing some Polynesian themed songs and the atmosphere was quite nice.

What I didn’t like was the number of insects flying around in the bar due to the lights. This entire area is open and probably because it is so close to the water it is impossible to control these. It didn’t seem to bother anybody else than me so I am most likely just not used to it.

Pool / Fitness Center

They had a small pool on the property and few chairs around it. There were more chairs on the deck very close to the water. As I was leaving early in the morning, I didn’t have time to check out the fitness center at this property.

Transportation

The hotel was offering a shuttle (not sure if it was free) to the city center of Suva and back three to four times a day. So it is possible to explore the city and still day at this hotel. I didn’t use the shuttle because I had a rental car and staying at this hotel only for a night.

Conclusion

Nice and relaxing hotel that is located very close to the Suva city. I probably wouldn’t spend here longer than couple of days, if you are just planning to explore the city. I also stayed at the Holiday Inn hotel in Suva that is right in the city center. I will write about it tomorrow.

Accor is having a sale for stays between March 9 and April 15, 2012. You can get 3 nights for the price of 2. There are quite a few hotels participating to this promotion, but obviously not all. They just sent an email notification for their A Club members before making the offer more widely available.

I was just looking for options in Kuala Lumpur, where I will be this weekend, and Novotel had quite decent rates. If you are looking for some stays that are 3 days or longer, it might make some sense to check out the Accor’s prices.

There is still the promotion going to get instant Platinum status as well with the Accor’s A Club. You can access this sale using the link here.

As Accor has been running quite a few promotions lately to get folks to sign up for their frequent stay program and give them the Platinum status right away, I finally decided to check out couple of their properties when I was in Fiji.

I have already written about my disastrous stay at the Mercure hotel in Nadi and will do the write up about my Novotel experience tomorrow that was acceptable. The stay at the Novotel posted without problems to my A Club account, but the stay at the Mercure is apparently MIA.

Both of these reservations was done one Accor’s website while logged in to the A Club account. I can also see post of the stays on my reservation history. So, these are both linked to my account and my account number MUST have been on file.

Decided to check out how the system of requesting a stay credit for a past stay that hasn’t posted to your account is working. Apparently they want you to scan a copy of your folio and attach it to the request. I didn’t have it on hand so attached a picture of the cockroach that I had in my room there.

Just got the following reply back that this is a no go.

Is this scanning of receipts and sending them to A Club worth of my or anybody’s time? Of course it is not and they very well know that. Hotels are paying for the A Club points awarded for A Club members, and they can simply remove your account number from the reservation so that they don’t have this extra expense. It would be the right thing to A Club to contact the properties and request copies of the past stays that have been reported through their website, and then post the missing points.

Please note that this offer is not currently valid. Sign up for our free email alerts so that you won’t miss when this is available next time.

Accor has run number of promotion with various banks for giving Platinum Status for their customers. Apparently now it is Citibank’s turn. This promotion is supposed to run to May 31st, 2012 but these tend to end earlier. Last time Accor run similar promotion with HSBC.

The terms and conditions indicate that you would need to reside in the United Arab Emirates to be eligible for this offer. I just signed up my brother, who lives in Finland, and all went through just fine.

I had spent the three previous nights at the Hilton, Radisson Blu, and Sheraton hotels in the Denarau Island. I wanted to have a look at the city and the bars on the Queens road are, and had arranged a car rental the following morning from the airport. As I had planned to only crash at the hotel for the night, I decided that Mercure should be ok.

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To be honest, I am not very familiar with the Accor’s brands. I know that they have lots of hotels, but most of them are somewhat lower quality ones than Hyatt’s and Starwood’s. I thought that Mercure would be comparable to a lower quality Holiday Inn or maybe to a Holiday Inn Express hotel.

Location

This hotel is conveniently located to the airport in Nadi. It is on the Queens road very close to the night spots in the city. It is within a rather long walk from the Nadi town, but there is nothing really in the city worth seeing.

Hotel

Not sure what is the official star rating of this hotel, but comparing to international standards it shouldn’t be more than two stars. It had a very motel like feeling. They do offer some sort of airport shuttle in certain times of the day. It probably makes sense to check how early these shuttles leave. In some hotels they were 3 hours before scheduled departure time that is way too early. From Mercure it takes 10 to 15 minutes to the airport. There is no need to check in earlier than 70 minutes before your scheduled international departure time.

Check in

I had just made a reservation for same day arrival. It didn’t take too long for them to pull it and gave me a key. Although I am an Accor Platinum member (due to a recent promotion), don’t think that there are any benefits when staying at Mercure properties. I had a bell boy helping take my bag to the room.

Room 120

This was a ground floor room that had a direct access to the courtyard/pool. The room was ok. Nothing good but nothing bad either. The TV was rather small. There was an empty refrigerator. Not sure why there was two beds – one bigger and one rather small one.

At one point there was a cockroach on the floor. Took the picture before killing it.

Pool

The pool area looked rather nice compared to the room I had. They had two small pools and few hammocks in the garden.

Conclusion

This hotel is fine for a quick overnight. I would not, however, spend more than a night at this property.

If you have an old A-Club account, you then need to make a decision whether opening a new account is worthwhile for you. Please note that you cannot use an existing email address that is on file with A-Club for signing up a new account.

Here is the quick look at the Accor A Club Platinum benefits:

A|Club Platinum status

With 60 nights or 25,000 A|Club points.

– 100% A|Club points bonus for every stay
Exclusive benefits at Sofitel*, Pullman and MGallery hotels.
– Welcome drink and gift
– Room upgrade**
– Late check-out up to 4:00 pm**
– A room always available if you reserve at least 3 days before your arrival.
– A Thalassa sea & spa Institute beauty and treatment product when you stay at Sofitel Thalassa sea & spa
– A welcome gift for any stay of 10 nights or more at Adagio, plus late check-out**
– Dedicated customer service

Couple of days ago I wrote about an offer from Accor that would give you an instant Accor A Club Gold status just for signing up. Apparently, they have even better offer going on right now. You can get an instant Platinum status using an offer code FFPAFS04C.

If you have an existing account all you need to do is to use the following link and just input your A Club number and an email address. You will shortly receive a welcome email welcoming you to Platinum status with Accor Hotels.

It never hurts to have a Gold status with Accor just in case you happen to find a great price at one of their hotels or to be in a place where you don’t have your favorite chain represented. Accor has pretty good coverage in South America, Europe, and in part of Asia.

Last year they run a promotion for instant Platinum status. Right now they have a promotion that gives you an instant Gold status with Accor’s A Club. All you need to do is to plug in the promotional code ACLUBFROHMYGOLD2011 when you sign up.

Accor Hotels is having their end of year super sale. Accor A Club members can save up to 50% off and non-members up to 40% off the best available rates when booked by this Friday 25th of November for stays between December 11th, 2011 and 12th February, 2012. A Club, Accor Hotels loyalty program, is free to join. The link for this offer is at http://www.accorhotels.com/gb/promotion/specials/crazyprices.shtml.